


Dean Winchester, Lord. Amen

by FrancesHouseman



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Child Neglect, First Time, M/M, Masturbation, Sibling Incest, Spoilers for just about everything to-date (s09e09), Time Travel, Voyeurism, child!Dean - Freeform, residual vampire traits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:55:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancesHouseman/pseuds/FrancesHouseman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets pulled into the Stream of Time after a hunt. He has to try and find Dean in the moment he left but can’t seem to get it right (angel onboard but dormant for this story).</p><p>or<br/> </p><p>There are three hours of Dean’s life where Sam doesn’t even exist and Dean spends them eating pie, jerking off and sleeping.</p><p>Sam spends them swimming in Dean’s life and learning all kinds of things about the brother he thought he knew so well...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liquorish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquorish/gifts).



> This is a gift for the poet Liquorish, who left lovely comments on my other fic to which I very rudely failed to respond, having nothing intelligent to say. Sorry <3
> 
> I was going to wait until it was finished to make sure it was good enough but you already left kudos so I guess it's okay :)
> 
>  
> 
> I'll update tags/warnings/characters as I add chapters

 

 

When they confirmed that the creatures killing people along the Oregon Trail were in fact griffins, Dean lit up like a Christmas tree. The prospect of a challenging hunt right on their doorstep put a spring in his step. He whistled in the kitchen and sang in the shower.

 

Griffins hunted for meaty prey, the bigger the better. Unfortunately, the pair responsible for the gruesome outbreak of ‘Trail Death’ had developed a taste for human flesh and somebody needed to take them down.

 

Further research (while Dean sang in the shower) revealed that the Oregon Trail had been an ancient migratory route long before humans had arrived. The texts Sam studied suggested that griffins would have hunted the trail for as long as it had been used by animals that were large enough to make a tasty meal. Griffins were creatures of habit and the lore surrounding them was steeped in their lifelong pair-bonding. They hatched in twos and nested and hunted together. If one died then the other would go on, forever alone, or until a hunter cut short its immortal life.

 

Dean was silent and moody after learning this, skin flushed pink from too long under hot water but facial expression hardening until he was closed-off. He had taken more interest than usual in the lore (particularly the illustrations) and Sam understood that Dean had begun to feel an affinity with the griffins, fellow hunters and admittedly magnificent beasts. Finding that griffins were Dean’s deepest values incarnate had cemented the connection so that Dean, usually trigger happy and indiscriminately homicidal towards the monsters of the world, balked at the thought of hunting to kill.

 

****

 

Dean spent hour upon hour cleaning and checking their guns and testing his aim in surly silence. Since leaving the griffins unharmed was not an option, Dean had been resolved to killing both, cleanly and swiftly if possible.

 

The rapidly plummeting mood weighed heavily on Sam and so he set himself the task of putting it right. He toyed with the idea of banishing the creatures and worked late into the night, ransacking the Bunker’s library for suitable books and files. Sam looked for safe places on Earth to whence they could banish the creatures but it was no good. The climate was either wrong or there would be danger to humans in almost every location. He looked at the supernatural realms next and seriously contemplated Purgatory for a good hour. In the end he couldn’t justify loosing the creatures on the quasi-human monster-souls like Benny. He kept thinking of Dean wielding that awful handmade blade. Besides, there was a good chance that Purgatory would be the griffins’ final location in any case, and Dean would see it as the same thing as killing them.

 

It might have been a small step from spatial dimensions to temporal dimensions but it felt like a stroke of pure genius to Sam at 3am. There was no need to send the griffins anywhere: they could hunt the Oregon Trail _before_ people were around to be eaten.

 

Finding a way of actually doing this seemed near impossible but Sam persevered because the idea had really sunk its teeth into him and he was a stubborn son of a bitch. He drank coffee throughout the night and the Men of Letters came up trumps once again, close to dawn.

 

****

 

Sam slept in and then surprised Dean with his idea while they ate giant bacon baguettes for lunch. The solution to their problem (also in the chemical sense) was called 'Tears of Time'. So far as Sam could fathom, a method of time travel had inadvertently been discovered by an eighteenth century alchemist striving for the elusive Elixir of Life.

 

They decided on one hundred and thirty thousand years. It was pushing the boundaries of what Sam thought might be possible but if it worked then they would send the griffins back far enough that even the most daring humans had not yet migrated from Africa. “It might be their parents' time, Dean,” Sam said.

 

“Really? That’s quite a generational gap.” Dean’s interest in griffins had extended to their strength, hunting prowess and, prudently, their defences against other hunters, but not their breeding habits.

 

“Griffin eggs can be dormant for tens of thousands of years, according to...” Sam checked the cover of the giant tome before him, “Carney’s Miscellany of Deviants.”

 

Dean smirked. “What does it say under Sasquatch?”

 

Sam rolled his eyes but couldn’t entirely contain his self-satisfaction. He could totally afford to bask in this heroic feeling for a while. Thanks to Sam there was now a viable alternative to slaughter _and_ a vast improvement in Dean’s mood.

 

****

 

It was complicated to make and store five thousand gallons of Tears of Time solution. Sam was grateful for the lab at the Bunker because chemistry, even on a small scale, would have been impossible in a motel room. That they had an entire garage full of empty propane canisters was fortuitous indeed. Neither the formula nor the Latin incantations were particularly difficult. The volume required was something of a challenge.

 

“If we drank it would we live forever?” Dean asked, peering over Sam’s shoulder as he worked.

 

“No. I don’t know what it would do to you. Maybe send your insides back in time? Probably best not to try it.”

 

Dean looked a little green around the gills and Sam assessed that he had been satisfactorily dissuaded from experimentation. 

 

They purchased a giant water tank and transported it to the Middle of Nowhere, Kansas on a flatbed truck. It took a general purpose tank trailer and various pieces of pumping equipment to transport the Tears of Time. They also hired a lot of safety gear at Sam’s insistence: he had no desire to lose bits of Dean or himself to ancient history.

 

Dean’s favourite part was robbing a local aquarium for the bait.

 

Compared to the gruelling days of preparation, luring a griffin into a tank full of Tears of Time was a walk in the park. The griffins were initially more interested in eating Sam and Dean than in the tasty coy carp snacks on offer, and there was a minor complication in that every time they dropped a fish into the tank it disappeared too quickly; however, they managed to fend off aerial attacks without getting hurt or hurting the creatures too badly. Dean rigged a line across the top of the tank, one poor fish wriggling, impaled like a giant bead. When the first griffin dived into the pool, taking the bait and vanishing, the other followed so quickly that Sam would have missed it if he had blinked. The second creature fell into the pool screaming, like a terrible bolt of lightning.

 

Emptying the tank afterwards was much easier. Dean shot out the glass from a safe distance, the tank shattering in a spectacular explosion, gallons of Sam’s endeavours soaked up quickly by the dry earth.

 

****

 

Dean’s post-hunt buzz set in and spread its roots into Sam as well. He felt giddy and light, secretly agreeing with AC/DC: Rock and roll could never die, not if Dean refused it.

 

Sam snagged a water bottle from his desk as soon as they got back to the Bunker, thirsty and sore but in the good way that comes from hard physical labour. He gulped it down, swallowing and immediately gagging but it was too late. Stupid rookie mistake. He had just drunk from the Tears of Time test batch.

 

Dean was walking away from him, saying, “I was gonna call first shower but we have multiple bathrooms now.”

 

Sam bellowed, “DEAN!” but Dean couldn’t hear him.

 

“...I call best bathroom Sammy, the one with the whole row of showers and the jacuzzi bathtub...”

 

The Bunker faded, Dean’s image going watery around the edges before vanishing completely.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

 

 

Sam found that he was lying in the foetal position on the sand and grit shore of a medium sized river. He sat up grimacing, scrubbing at his hair and looking around. He saw only woods, thick woods of ancient deciduous trees beyond both banks. There was no breeze, no rustling of leaves and no birds or animals so far as he could tell; only the steady babbling of the river and a thick, almost palpable silence. He remembered C. S. Lewis’s ‘Woods Between the Worlds’ from The Magician’s Nephew and wondered if the Tales of Narnia were really messed-up biographies, like Oz. At least his insides felt like they had made the journey with him.

 

“It’s the Stream of Time.”

 

Okay. Wow. How had Sam missed the giant stalk-like bird watching him? It was large for a bird, maybe toucan sized. Its plumage was black and white and, although its wings were folded, Sam could tell that its markings were beautifully intricate, as though an artist had doodled it in a spare hour with pen and ink. The only colourful part was the bird’s beak, which was bright blue. Its gaze managed to convey wisdom and... something else; amusement perhaps, and it was fixed on Sam.

 

The bird tilted its head in consideration and added, “Well, _some_ Time.”

 

This time Sam saw the impressive curved beak moving and there could be no mistaking that it was the bird talking to him. Right. Fine. He hoped it wasn’t a friend of the griffins’.

 

They regarded each other for a moment in the strange muddy silence and finally the bird shrugged, something Sam would not have believed if he hadn’t seen the tops of its wings moving for himself, and said, “You’ll have to wade back in if you want to get out of here.”

 

“Okay.” Sam waded in because there was nothing else for it, and the bird-thing did look wise. “Um.” He said after a moment, waist-deep, because nothing was happening and he was starting to feel foolish.

 

“Submerge, Sam Winchester,” the bird said. “Submerge and subjugate.” It spread its wings in a much wider span than Sam would have imagined and the detailed markings were revealed. Sam gasped in awe at the... _work_ : Surely an artist or scholar had painstakingly created this. It looked like the beautiful ancient documents Sam rarely came across in his research. It was the sort of thing that Dean dismissed and Sam fixated on. He was sure that he recognised symbols, maybe even text but the wings moved, beating, and the glimpses were too fleeting to be sure.

 

“Whatever you’re looking for, it’s down there at the bottom somewhere.” The bird’s eyes were amused again, which shouldn’t be possible without a human face but Sam just knew he was being laughed at. It half-folded its wings for a moment and cocked its head sideways at him. “Just like diving for rings when you learn to swim,” it said, and beat its wings again, harder this time, pushing off from the branch and flying lazily away into the woods without a backwards glance.

 

Sam called after the semi-helpful bird but it became clear that he had been left alone, so he ducked his head and shoulders under. He was immediately bombarded with images washing around his head, although his eyes were closed. He broke the surface and breathed. Holding his breath underwater had been automatic but Sam noted, without much surprise, that his head was dry.

 

He went under again and tried to examine each image. It was difficult because they swirled around him in a thundering rush, like rapid waters. There were feelings associated with each image, some of them stronger. Sam found a brief glimpse of Dean missing him, searching for him, and he latched onto it, pulling it into focus for all he was worth...

 

****

 

...and suddenly he was in the passenger seat of the Impala. Dean was driving and talking animatedly, as though Sam had been there all along.

 

“...a God-honest zombie-fest Sammy, you would’a loved it.”

 

Dean glanced over at him briefly but apparently saw nothing amiss because he went right back to tapping his fingers lightly and rocking ever so slightly in time to the music.

 

“Next time, yeah? We’ll find a whole church yard full of ‘em, just you and me. Be just like Resident Evil.” It was all wrong. The music was right but Dean was too young and his grip on the steering wheel was too tight.

 

“Dean?” Sam tried.

 

There was a long pause and Sam figured that he was either being ignored or considered. Then Dean said, “Damn right Sammy, me too. Could eat a horse,” and pulled sharply off the road at a truck stop, spraying dust behind them.

 

Sam followed Dean into the diner and Dean dropped the door on him. He was halfway through it but instead of the sharp pain in the shoulder that Sam was expecting, the door went right through him. That was when Sam understood: Dean couldn’t see Sam because he wasn’t really there, and he couldn’t hear him for the same reason.  Sam _had_ somehow gone back in time, that much was clear from the lines missing from his brother’s eyes and the amulet around his neck.

 

Dean dropped into a faux leather booth and snagged a menu. Sam sat down opposite him out of sheer habit.

 

“Know what I’m having. S’pose you want something healthy or some shit?” Dean’s voice was quieter than it would have been if Sam was really there and he didn’t glance up. Was it possible that a younger version of Sam was here but somehow invisible?

 

No. This had never happened, not while Sam had been around at least. The uncomfortable feeling in Sam’s gut settled deeper like a lead ball. This was Dean without Dad and without Sam, and Sam knew where the younger version of himself was: more than a thousand miles West, studying pre-Law in California.

 

When Darlene, their waitress, sidled over, Dean flirted like he always had. He called her _Sugar_ and _Sweetheart_ and, because it was Dean, he got a pretty blush and a sweet smile in return instead of the eye-roll he deserved.  

 

Dean flicked his eyes down to Sam’s left ear and grinned. “And a house salad with a glass of milk,” he said.

 

Darlene said something about hungry boys and Dean beamed at her retreating behind. “Think I’m in there Sammy,” he said quietly as she handed their order to the cook.

 

This was Dean alone and putting on a brave face and Sam’s heart ached for him. Dean was never meant to be alone. He was ordering food for a brother who had left him behind. Crazy behaviour for sure, and Sam would have been more worried for this young Dean, barely more than a boy, except that Dean kept his voice low while he talked to Sam’s absence. Dean wasn’t loopy: he knew that Sam wasn’t really there. This was just Dean trying to cope on his own. It seemed that he had never stopped talking to Sam.

 

Dean whispered to him as he ate. He was careful that nobody would see or overhear. He told Sam more about the zombies, about hearing from Dad and, heartbreakingly, about how he was going to drive to Stanford soon to visit Sam and what a great time they would have together. Sam committed every detail to memory, free to do so unobserved, the salad untouched before of him.  

 

He wanted to cry. He wanted to take it all back and never leave. He wanted to reach across the table and take his brother’s hand in his own but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to see his ghostly hand fall through Dean’s solid one in a parody of his own impotence at making amends.

 

****

 

When Dean had finished eating, when Darlene had taken away the plates and presented him with the bill and given him clear come-hither eyes, Dean dropped the cheerful facade. Sam had already known that Dean was miserable and lonely: a tightness in his face and too much bravado in the pretend conversation giving him away. It still hit Sam like a blow below the belt when Dean put his head in his arms on the table and whispered, “I’m sorry Sammy.”

 

“No Dean...” Sam knew that his brother couldn’t hear him but still tried instinctively to soothe.

 

Dean wasn’t done though. Sam stilled to catch it, knowing that it was wrong and that he was intruding on a moment that was utterly private; knowing too that these were secrets Dean would never volunteer and that this was his only chance to find out how it had been for him.

 

“I’m gonna see if she’ll have me,” Dean confided, glancing over at Darlene, “There’s nothing...” He swallowed hard when the whisper broke, and then, “Girls are the only thing that works Sammy.”

 

Sam frowned because that wasn’t what he had been expecting.

 

“I’ve gotta have a break Sam,” Dean whispered. “I’m going nuts here thinkin’ of you all the time.” He pushed himself up and paused as he stood by Sam’s future ghost. There was a faraway look in his eyes and his face looked so young and vulnerable for a moment that Sam reached out for him despite himself. If he hadn’t been straining to hear Dean’s whisper then he would have missed it: “Should'a had your back with Dad.”

 

Then Dean was turning away, switching on the cocky smile that was sure to get him laid and swaggering over to Darlene to pay the bill and give her his tip, no doubt in the bathroom or out back. Sam estimated that Dean was 22, maybe 23. How long had he kept this up?

 

If somebody had asked Sam yesterday whether he would alter his past then the answer would have been easy: of course not. Anyone who had watched Star Trek or read Harry Potter would know better than to go messing around with the past for no good reason. Hell, Sam even had his own firsthand experience of time travel and how tricky it could be. The trouble is, until that moment, watching Dean walk away, Sam’s answer would have been purely academic. There was no doubt in Sam’s mind that he would talk to this Dean if he could. He would comfort him and make it all better, or at the very least present an interesting distraction that they could quarrel over.

 

He needed to get back to his own time. The Dean who was busy using full-charm on Darlene was going to have to dodge a reaper, survive the Apocalypse, be forever tainted by decades in Hell and spend a year with a vampire blood-brother in Purgatory. Sam took a moment to feel truly sorry for everything his brother would suffer. It also occurred to him that trying to find Dean in a moment when he had been pining for Sam might easily have landed him in one of the more unpleasant supernatural realms. He shuddered and focussed on getting back to the river.

 

****

 

It was surprisingly easy. Sam closed his eyes and imagined the swimming images. He tilted his head back and imagined that he was pushing up and breaking out, clearing the water’s surface... 

 

... and he was waist deep, head and shoulders not even slightly damp. The woods were still silent and close and there was no sign of his brilliantly patterned bird friend.

 

The only change was Sam’s lingering sadness.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

 

 

Sam sat on the riverbank and thought about it. Dean probably didn’t even know that he was missing yet. Or, well, Dean would know that Sam was missing _sometime,_ but only if Sam failed to return before Dean realised he had gone. God. How complicated.

 

Sam needed to go a little further into the future, eleven years or so. He took five paces downstream along the bank, and then another for good measure. It was not an exact science and Sam hated that.

 

This time, when he waded in and slipped under, Sam felt around for an image that contained the essence of his brother, how he had been after hunting the griffins: relatively content and as untroubled as Dean ever got.

 

 _Pure Dean_ , Sam thought, _not Dean pining for Sam, just Dean doing Dean things..._

 

****

 

...The classroom had a blackboard, which dated it immediately. Sam was doubly sure that he had messed up, travelled in the wrong direction and much too far, because the date written in pink chalk read, _Friday 24 th May 1985_; however, he didn’t try to leave immediately. Curiosity got the better of him and he cast around for six year old Dean.

 

He wasn’t surprised to see Dean in the centre of a small knot of boys. There were thirty or so children in the class sharing six large tables. Dean’s table was closest to the door, seating four other boys, Dean and a single girl. Each child had an exercise book opened in front of them and they were clearly supposed to be practicing sums. Children popped up regularly from their seats to replace finished question cards and collect new ones, presumably more of the same ad infinitum. The children at Dean’s table seemed less inclined to hurry through their work.

 

The teacher was an unremarkable middle aged woman with close-cropped curly brown hair. She was watching Dean with a tired look on her face. Dean was showing something to the boys on either side of him. Sam tried to get a look but their heads were too close together, hair touching. It made him think of head lice.

 

Another woman came in. She was younger and plumper with greasy looking blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail. Her outfit screamed _School Nurse_ and Sam immediately worried for his brother. “You wanted to see me Jean?” she asked.

 

“Pauline.” Jean offered her a tight smile and ushered Pauline to her desk. Sam went too. They talked in hushed voices about the Winchester boy who had been in class for a month now. _Such a shame_ , they said. _Dirty_ , they said. _Same clothes every day_ , they said. _Holes in his shoes, poor thing_.

 

Sam looked over at Dean. There was a dirty tide mark showing under the collar of his polo shirt. The shirt itself had seen better days. “He smells, Pauline,” Jean complained. “I want you to wash him.”

 

Pauline nodded dutifully and Jean summoned Dean to her desk. Dean studied his feet, looking guilty as sin. Here was a child who was clearly used to being in trouble. “It’s okay Dean,” the teacher said. She had the attention of the rest of the class too now, the other children finely attuned to trouble and telling-off.

 

Pauline-the-Nurse gave Dean what she probably considered to be a caring smile. It was totally wasted on Dean because he was still looking at his shoes, and yeah, there was a hole in the right one. “When was the last time you had a bath Dean?” she asked.

 

Her voice was sickly sweet and it carried to every child in the room. Sam wanted to punch her.

 

When Dean didn’t answer she exchanged a knowing look with Jean and led Dean out of the classroom. Adrenalin flooded Sam. He followed them down the corridor feeling frustrated in his inability to stop her.

 

“Just going to have a wash,” Pauline told Dean. They passed an outside door and Dean surprised both adults present with his strength and speed when he made a bid for freedom. Sam knew it was futile, Dean probably did too, but he couldn’t help silently cheering his brother on. Dean got halfway across the playground before Pauline, huffing and panting, caught him by the arm and dragged him back. Defeated and miserable, Dean went quietly this time, resigned to his fate.

 

Dean cried as Pauline undressed him in her office. Sam could tell that he was trying not to but his bottom lip trembled and quiet sobs escaped. He clutched at his underwear in a last attempt at dignity but the woman coaxed and cajoled until he gave in, tears streaming down his little face.

 

There were bruises on Dean’s left upper arm and Sam knew whose fingers would match those prints. Their father could have been snatching Dean from the jaws of a monster, and of course Pauline couldn’t know that, but Sam thought with a dull certainty that it was more likely the drink. When Sam had complained about John’s occasional binge, Dean had alluded to worse times and Sam thought that these were probably those times. This soon after Mary’s death, John Winchester’s alcohol problem was likely at its worst.

 

Pauline washed Dean’s hair first, leaning him back over the tiny sink as he trembled. The middle of Dean’s body looked startlingly white, as though he was still wearing a white t-shirt and shorts. She sponged the rest of him gently, murmuring nonsensical things about what a good boy Dean was.

 

Sam hated her. He stood against the wall in the tiny office hating the nurse, the teacher, the school and every school where he and Dean had been different. He couldn’t make himself leave. Time travel was probably a dangerous idea anyhow, since it seemed to work by emotions and Sam’s were all over the place. It was so unfair that Dean should go through this alone. Sam considered coming back here and finding these people in their retirement to exact some unpleasant revenge.

 

Bearing witness to tiny Dean’s shame made Sam realise that Dean was no longer alone. Sam might have been a ghost but he was there now, in this nurse’s office in 1985, and he _always would have been_. He was right there, suffering silently with his brother and Dean just didn’t know it. Sam was changing things by just being there.

 

He still wanted to punch something.

 

Towel dried and dressed in borrowed school clothing, Dean was led back to the classroom. The children were lined up, waiting to go and play outside. Dean was slotted in and Pauline and Jean huddled for a hushed conversation about State Welfare and child abuse. Sam thought that today would be Dean’s last day at this particular school. When Dad got a look at his clean son in new clothing they would be moving on. They were wasting their time and it made him glad.

 

“Doesn’t your mum give you baths?” 

 

Sam supposed that six year olds were not renowned for their tact. The boy that had spoken looked more curious than mean but kids could be cruel. Some of the girls whispered to each other behind their hands but the boys stared openly at Dean in curiosity. Dean ignored the girls and Sam’s lips quirked up in a wry smile. Dean Winchester, indifferent to the ladies. Who'd have guessed it?

 

“Sure she does.” There were no signs of tears now on Dean’s small face.

 

“My mum says that children who don’t have baths smell of wee.” The boy had gained confidence and what started as a genuine question had acquired a definite tone of mocking.

 

“You smell of wee.”

 

Sam snorted laughter. It was so typically Dean. The antagonist had been put in his place, red faced and looking about ready to cry while the other children snickered.  

 

But Dean looked immediately sorry. “No you don’t,” he said, and the children stopped to listen. “People only smell of wee if they get it on their clothes,” Dean considered for a moment, “Or babies who have diapers full of it.”

 

There were a few cries of _Ewwww!_ and the children were laughing again but the laughter was general this time, attention having been redirected from Dean’s antagonist.

 

Sam winced. In the spring of 1985 he would have just turned two years old. This tiny child, grimy with neglect, with holes in his shoes and a meagre few items of third-hand clothing to his name; this was Sam’s primary carer.

 

And where the hell was the real Sam? Did their father stay home during the day, hunting only at night? Was he with a childminder? In a nursery? Sam considered asking Dean when he got back but knew, even as he thought about it, that he never would. Sam didn’t want to know.

 

Dean had his treasures out again, showing them off and this time Sam got a look. A knife for Christ’s sake. Military issue and only a small penknife but definitely not a good plaything for a six year old. Dean wasn’t letting anyone else hold it though. And there was something else: a photo of their family when their mum was still alive. Dean whispered, “My mum’s dead now,” confidentially to the boy he was with, one of the same boys from the classroom. The boy looked at him in frightened awe so Dean quickly added, “It’s okay though ‘cause I got a Dad and a brother who can _talk_.”

 

The other boy still looked worried so Dean put his treasures away and reassured him. “Some kids are _orphans_. That means they don’t have any family. So I’m lucky.” Dean sounded one hundred percent convinced.

 

****

 

In the playground Dean kicked a soccer ball around until the other boys joined in. They soon had a small game going on the field and Sam watched and let his anger drain away. The last half hour forgotten, Dean seemed carefree again. He was organising his team but none of the boys wanted to be the goalie, so Dean took the position himself. Sam considered this child who would become his whole world. He was different from the other children and would have made an easy target for bullying, but instead Dean was popular and respected. His natural vibrance was blindingly obvious to Sam and it drew the other children to him. Sam thought that Dean almost shone and that it had nothing to do with the recent wash.

 

Dean would be going home to baby Sammy and drunk Dad. There would be no afterschool soccer club for this little boy and Sam was sorry for that. He needed to leave now, while things were still okay for Dean. Sam wasn't sure that his heart would survive another trauma like the sponge bath.

 

Sam closed his eyes and pushed up and out of 1985. As he felt the waters part he sent a prayer of gratitude to every deity: thanks for the big brother who had washed him at every opportunity and campaigned for new clothes.  

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a poem called Timothy Winters by Charles Causley, and that's where the inspiration for this chapter came from. It's where I took the title from too. 
> 
> (although there's also a particular desktop background that makes me say "Dean Winchester, Lord. Amen," for entirely different reasons ;) )


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

The problem, as Sam saw it, was the direction of the flow of time. To Sam’s mind the Stream of Time should flow forwards, downstream and into the future. Apparently it was the other way round and downstream was the past. This whole place was messing with Sam’s head. He supposed that it explained his initial jump into the past: the river must have carried him a little before he washed up on the bank.

 

Okay, so, this point in the river was way too far in the past. Sam paced out eight large strides upriver along the bank before he waded in. At first the images wouldn’t come and his mind was oddly blank. Then he caught a flash of the Impala, reassuring and beautifully sleek in the sunlight. He pulled it in...

 

****

 

...The first things that Sam noticed were the all-in-one jump suits. He was in a large hall with high ceilings crowded with people dressed in every colour of the rainbow, and then some.

 

It was an auction house: the auctioneer was taking bids for a classic Mustang 429. Sam blinked in astonishment at the price, currently at four point seven million dollars. It must be a special car he thought, a prop from the movies perhaps. There were hundreds of people gathered around the car-platform in cold light. The multitude of zip-up onesies made Sam think of a Teletubby convention.

 

He scanned the crowd for Dean. The costumes and the price of the car could only mean the future he decided, how far into the future he couldn’t have guessed. There was not a mobile phone in sight and Sam looked for the source of the cold lighting but couldn’t identify it. He felt a clammy creeping fear. Looking into the future was a whole different ball game from seeing a few scenes from the past. Dean wasn’t anywhere to be found.

 

There was one familiar face in the crowd however, two familiar faces in fact. Charlie was on the far side of the hall looking exactly the same as the last time Sam had seen her heading into the sunset. Dorothy was with her. Apparently time was different in Oz. Sam followed Charlie’s hair though the sea of people like a beacon.

 

Closer-up Charlie looked nervous. She was twisting an old paperback copy of The Patchwork Girl of Oz in her hands but stilled when Dorothy laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s coming home with us,” Dorothy said and Charlie just bit her lips together and nodded.

 

The engine of the Mustang roared to life and the crowd parted as it was driven out. Sam recognised the next lot from the rumble of her engine before she was even in sight. It was the Impala, _Dean’s_ Impala, there was no mistaking it. The bodywork was pristine and the plates had been changed to vanity plates reading “SAM DEAN”.

 

The thing that struck Sam as odd (well, aside from this whole experience being odd) was that his name came first. She was Dean’s Baby and always had been. Dean had even been there when their father bought her, having the lion’s share of time-travel experience. Sam tried to imagine Dean wanting to put Sam’s name first and, yeah, actually that did sound like Dean, but he would never _admit to it_. Maybe Sam had done it? But no, vanity plates were much more Dean’s area. Maybe somebody else had done it, after they had... and Sam cut that thought off right there.

 

He imagined them inside the Impala, rolling across the Midwest. Viewed from the front it would read the right way round, labelling Sam as the passenger; however, it seemed more natural to Sam to imagine them from the rear, driving away and leaving things behind, kicking up dust.  

 

There was a photograph inside Dorothy’s book, marking her place. She took it out as the Impala was arranged on the platform and stroked it thoughtfully. Sam couldn’t believe his eyes. The photograph was of Sam and Dean, looking more or less as they did when Sam had been snatched away and Dean had been heading for the best bathroom.

 

The photo had not been taken yet, Sam would have remembered. Sam’s dimples were deep and all his teeth were showing. Dean’s smile was so wide and genuine that Sam almost choked up again when he thought of the little boy with the white belly and dirty collar. They probably hadn’t smiled like that together since they were kids. It wasn’t the crazily happy expressions that made Sam sure he would have remembered this photograph though; no, the reason Sam was sure this had never happened was their pose. Sam was standing behind Dean with his arms tight about Dean’s waist, pressed close. Sam’s head was resting on Dean’s left shoulder and their faces were pressed together, side by side, Dean’s tilting slightly towards Sam.

 

Was it possible that he and Dean had been together as more than brothers? As lovers? Sam’s pulse picked up and he felt his face heat. This was so unfair. He had lived with the shame and guilt of wanting Dean for as long as he could remember. He had been in denial for years as a teenager, fighting against it. When it had become clear that it wasn’t going away Sam had strived for normal for all he was worth, leaving Dean behind. In hindsight it had been futile and he regretted it terribly. Later, when normal was no longer an option, he had suppressed and suppressed and suppressed. The agony of being so close to what he could never have was as familiar as a part of him. Sometimes he would withdraw from Dean, overwhelmed, unable and unwilling to keep up the pretence but generally Sam took what he could from life. He kept Dean close in every way that he could. Except for this. Except for this intimacy that Sam craved with him.

 

Hope and joy tried to burst their way up through Sam’s chest and he forced them down with all the grit he could muster. The future was not yet written. Even if this was one possible future (and Sam’s heart made another break for it, making his throat close up so that for a moment he couldn’t breathe) it was not a foregone conclusion. They might have been goofing off for the photo. Charlie might have Photoshopped them that way in an inspired Beckyesque fangirl moment. Something supernatural might be playing him.

 

Actually, that sounded about right. Sam managed to get himself back under control and the bubbly panic was replaced by suspicion. It made sense: being fucked around by a mischievous demigod or a bored archangel was, unfortunately, much more likely in the life of Sam Winchester than being handed his heart’s desire on a plate.

 

Sam slipped back into hunter-mode and considered his adventures in time so far, as he would consider a case: There had been the bird thing that had known his name; It had said, “Whatever you’re looking for,” and, “Submerge and subjugate,” cryptically; The snippets of time that Sam had been shown were too poignant to be random; He had left all of the Tears of Time solution in the lab before they had left to hunt the griffins. It was this last point that held the most weight for Sam. It was possible that Dean had moved the bottle in their last minute preparations of course, but Sam couldn’t imagine why he would have.  

 

Bidding for the Impala started at five million dollars, which snapped Sam out of his reverie. Dean would approve. He watched the proceedings with interest. Dorothy entered the bidding when it slowed at eight million, waving her “28” card diligently high with each bid.

 

Dorothy’s only remaining competition was a bulky balding man standing directly across from them. He had a look of Garth perhaps, if Garth had been drip-fed protein and forced to work out for a few years. He looked rough and less amiable, but he had the same twinkle in his eye.

 

“Ten million, two hundred. Do I hear ten million three hundred? Anyone?”

 

The butch Garth lookalike shook his head ruefully. He directed an elaborate bow in Charlie and Dorothy’s direction.

 

“Going once... Going twice... Sold!” The hammer came down with a crack, “To the lady in red.”

 

The crowd started to applaud and Charlie visibly bounced. It was a smattering of claps that grew to a roar, with a few yips and whoops thrown in. Since when did people applaud auction winners?

 

Dorothy had slipped her arms around Charlie’s waist, beaming almost as much as Charlie. She turned in Dorothy’s arms and planted a kiss squarely on her lips. Well, that answered any remaining questions that Sam might have had about the nature of their relationship. They looked good together he thought, and not just because Dorothy’s red onesie complimented Charlie’s yellow one.

 

The crowd began to file out behind the Impala and Sam moved along with them. In the background he heard the auctioneer clear his throat. “Okay people, on with business,” he announced. “ Lot 80. 1980 Oldsmobile 442, mint condition. Can I hear one million? Anyone? Thank you sir, in the green...” Apparently the auction hadn’t ended and eighty percent of the punters had only been there for the Impala. Huh.

 

Dorothy and Charlie were disappearing into the crowd, hand in hand. Sam smiled as he watched them go and silently wished them happiness.

 

He closed his eyes and pushed up and away. It seemed unlikely that he and Dean had lived to see this future, even if it was real, and he left it behind with a sense of relief, like letting go. 

 

Sam had a new case to solve and this time it was _very_ personal.

  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the rating to Explicit (although this might be overkill, I'm never really sure, but it's getting kind of porny anyway and there's bound to be worse in future chapters :)

 

 

Sam stumbled over a gnarled tree root and cursed. He was heading in the same direction in which the bird had flown, knowing that he probably wouldn’t find it again but hoping to gather some intel about these woods at least. If only he had been able to study the wing markings then he might have been able to determine its nature.

 

 _Byangoma_ Sam’s mind helpfully supplied. Now he remembered. His brain did that sometimes, chewing over problems subconsciously and coming up with answers out of the blue, sometimes days after the problem had been posed. The mythology was Indian or... no, Bengali. Sam remembered reading about byangoma birds. They prophesied. As far as he could remember they didn’t lie or manipulate (well, not at trickster level anyway) and they didn’t hurt or kill people, and therefore didn’t generally need to be hunted.

 

The thing hadn’t come back no matter how loud Sam had called. He had a suspicion that the byangoma knew damn well that he wanted to question it but couldn’t really be bothered with him. It had seemed amused but rather disinterested, probably attending to something more important such as preening, much like many of his professors at Stanford.

 

When the sound of the river was no longer audible, Sam turned back. He couldn’t risk losing the Stream of Time. He imagined himself as a giant version of one of Uncle Andrew’s guinea pigs, stuck forever in the Wood Between the Worlds; however, he relaxed when he found his way back easily. The little excursion had revealed more woods, some really impressively ancient oaks and a few too-clear pools that Sam had given a wide berth. There had been neither a breath of wind nor another animal, not even an insect. It would have been creepy, except that the nature of the woods didn’t lend itself to such fanciful notions. It was simply silent (bar the river) and lifeless (bar the plants and the byangoma). If a person who had lived their entire life indoors dreamt of the countryside then this might be what they imagined.

 

Sam sat down at the edge of the river and mused. Even the light reflecting off the rippling water was somehow dulled. He had options. His first instinct was to continue to look for Dean, _his_ Dean. They could then research together, secure in the knowledge that they had each other’s backs, just in case whatever was going on here turned out to be malignant because, hey, it was more of a probability than a possibility these days.

 

The gaping hole in that particular plan was that he would be going back to Dean with only a hint at what might, possibly, on the edge of all that was rational and holy, have been a chance, however fleeting, at being Dean’s lover. Dean’s love, in every sense of the word.

 

Sam knew, he just _knew_ , that if he had to live with the uncertainty then it would drive him batshit crazy, particularly as he’d had the opportunity laid out before him to invade Dean’s past, uninvited, to get to the truth. If Dean had been harbouring extra feelings then he would never willingly admit to them. He would try to protect Sam from what he would no doubt see as corruption. It _was_ possible that Sam could wheedle out the facts eventually, without violating Dean’s privacy and... Oh, who was he kidding? Sam was doing this.

 

He reminded himself that it could still be an elaborate joke with falsified visions of the past and he managed to hold onto the cynicism with his mind; however, his heart wasn’t paying attention.

 

 _Dean,_ he thought as the waters closed over him. _Dean, if you’re hiding from me then the game’s over. I’m coming to find you..._

 

****

 

...The ground was hard and frozen with visible frost in patches amongst the scrub. A week or so before the golem in Wilkes-Barre had been Dean’s birthday. They weren’t usually big on birthdays, although they did mark them when they remembered, if neither of them was in danger of imminent death or, well, actually dead.

 

A bottle of Jim Beam was traditional and it had been Sam’s first thought on this occasion. They had only just discovered the Bunker and the moment would have leant itself to celebration more than was usual. There had been a bottle of Devil’s Cut in Sam’s hand before he had decided against it. He had recalled a review of the Fourth Generation Glock and decided to get one for Dean instead, quashing the voice of his conscience that had insisted he was buying Dean a phallus substitution. He had told himself that Dean’s liver needed a break and that it had nothing to do with wanting to watch Dean’s hands caressing the gun while he learned its intricacies at leisure. 

 

A few days later Sam had returned to the store and bought a second gun for himself so that it would seem more casual when he presented them to Dean. Dean hadn’t been fooled though because he had scrubbed at Sam’s hair with a killer grin until they had descended into a brief sparing match, something that they didn't do much of anymore. They got plenty of real life combat experience on hunts but Sam missed the physical proximity, sweet torture though it was.

 

This was the first time that Sam had gotten a look at his past self. No matter how many times he saw himself from the outside, be it a shapeshifter wearing his skin or a conversation with a faction of his soul in the confines of his mind, it never stopped being weird. He watched himself retreating and gave his own back a knowing look. Past-Sam was telling his brother that he was going to clean up and hit the library. Sam remembered that he had actually been desperate for some alone-time with his right hand, with the still-hot memory of their brief sparring match and the fresh images of Dean’s hands firing his new gun.

 

As soon as Sam’s past self was out of sight, Dean dropped to his knees with his head bowed. Sam’s instincts kicked in and he was on his knees with his brother before his rational mind caught up. This was the past and nothing bad had happened to Dean.

 

Before real panic could take hold, Dean raised his head and muttered, "Giant dork." Sam would have been offended except that Dean's tone was so obviously fond.  

 

And _Oh God_ , Dean was opening his jeans, right out here in the open. Sam knelt next to him, transfixed, as Dean pulled out his cock and set about relieving some tension of his own. He shoved his jeans and underwear further down so that they were around his knees, affording Sam a million dollar view of his own personal wet dream.

 

Dean stroked himself slowly, rolling and cupping his balls. He leant back on one arm so that his erection strained towards the heavens, obviously enjoying the exposure. He thrust upwards with his hips, fucking the circle of his fingers, too slow for quick gratification. It seemed that Dean wanted to stretch out the moment and make it last.

 

Sam pressed the heel of his palm against his own erection. Dean made a truly rousing picture, shameless and free like the high white clouds. He could have been an inspirational poster called _Freedom_ or maybe _Hedonism_. Sam would definitely put it on his wall.

 

When Sam had been a teenager with the usual anxieties about his body, he had fantasised about being invisible so that he could watch other people (okay, mostly Dean) dressing, showering and touching themselves without having to reveal himself. He realised that slipping into this moment in Dean’s past unobserved was basically the fulfilment of that fantasy. As Dean’s rhythm picked up, Sam was seized with the frantic need to experience this as fully as possible and commit it to memory. He got the urge to put his head down by Dean's crotch, and so he did. He panted lightly while he took a good look at Dean’s hard cock, flushed and moist at the tip. Dean’s balls bounced softly in time with his strokes and Sam wanted so badly to cup them tenderly and feel their weight in his hand. He smelled Dean’s arousal all around him and thought that he might come in his pants from it, like a schoolboy.

Sam knelt on all fours a foot away from Dean's face and absorbed the experience like a sponge. Dean’s eyes were open but unfocussed. He wondered what Dean would think if he could see Sam like this, but nobody was here to witness Sam’s voyeurism either: he was as free as Dean in this. He could almost feel Dean's pleasure build as he read the tiny signals in Dean’s body and his face. He could feel Dean’s breath on his own face as he began to pant in quick shaky gasps. He could hear the almost inaudible whimpers and see tremors starting to run through Dean’s body that must mean he was about to come. Dean grunted, “ _Oh fuck, that gun_ ,” and came with a low moan and a blissed-out expression on his face, come spattering the frozen ground between them.  

 

Sam whined in sympathy and pressed feverishly against himself with both hands.

 

Dean stayed where he was for a moment, everything hanging out, right there in the middle of their makeshift shooting range. When his cock had softened completely in the cold air he pushed to his feet and buckled himself back up before performing a huge satisfied catlike stretch, elbows to the heavens. Then he gathered up the unused ammo and his new handgun and sauntered off in the same direction that Sam had gone, towards their new home.

 

Sam sat in the grass and tried to will his arousal away. Assuming that the occurrence was genuine, he had just established that Dean had a heretofore unsuspected affinity with nature and that he really really liked his birthday present.

 

And no, this wasn’t going to work. Sam had to jerk off if he wanted to be able to think clearly, or at all.

 

All this had proved was that Sam still wanted to do many illegal and intricate things to Dean, more than ever in fact. He wanted to touch him and touch him and touch him until things were no longer awkward between them. He wanted to touch Dean until it was normal. He wanted to touch Dean until he was hooked and craving Sam’s touch like an addict. He wanted to touch him until Dean forgot that he was guilty and scared of being alone, too busy being alternately cherished and ravaged by Sam. Fuck. Sam spilled over the wet patch that Dean had left behind, his own come disappearing into the cold earth as though it had never been there at all.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

Finding a vision of Dean and Castiel in intimate conversation was harder than Sam had thought it might be. He disregarded the few snippets of conversation that he did find because they seemed to be concerned with everyday Winchester occurrences: the Apocalypse, Cas deciding to be God and angels falling from heaven like glitter from a Christmas card.

 

He had marked the riverbank at the place where he had found Dean’s 34th birthday with a clear line of pebbles all the way to the grass. He allowed himself one stride either side to spy on them. If Dean had confided in anyone then it would have been Cas. It was unlikely but not impossible. Sam felt a fresh surge of jealousy at the bond the two of them shared.

 

He tried to find a conversation about something absolutely human. Something that Cas would have found himself dealing with recently, that angels were usually above or distanced from. He floated for a moment in the deepest part of the river thinking, _Dean and Cas, something human._ When he ducked under the image was there, waiting for him. Sam pulled it in...

 

****

 

...Dean was sitting on a barstool next to Cas. They were wary of each other, lacking the familiar intimacy that made Sam stew in his juices.

 

“I must ask you to hasten your decision,” Castiel was saying stiffly, eyeing Dean’s array of shots with distaste. “Timing is of the utmost import.”

 

 _And ain’t that the truth_ , Sam thought.

 

“It has to be us?” Dean asked.

 

Cas’s lips thinned and he frowned. “It has to be _you_. Your brother is compromised...”

 

“Oh hell no,” Dean said. His voice brooked no argument. It would have made a werewolf sit like a good doggy. “You get both of us or neither of us.”

 

There was a lull in conversation and Dean got a far off look in his eyes. Sam knew what he was probably thinking about. Judging by the leather jacket and Dean and Cas’s prickly behaviour, Dean was not long out of Hell. He felt the familiar guilt and self-disgust that came whenever he remembered the demon blood.

 

“I know of your sinful thoughts about your brother Dean Winchester,” Castiel said. It was certainly the right thing to say to get Dean’s full attention back.

 

Dean said, “Jesus fucking Christ,” and blushed really hard.

 

Sam took a moment to savour it. Witnessing Dean Winchester blushing prettily was a rare opportunity indeed. Someone had once told him that when girls cried they got wet down below too. They had also said that when somebody blushed, blood rushed to both the face and the genitals. Sam had no idea if either of these things had a scientific basis. He doubted it because they sounded like playground myths; however, Sam couldn’t stop thinking about other flushed parts of Dean that might be waking up. Parts that Sam had seen for himself very recently.

 

Castiel was taking exception to Dean’s whole-hearted blasphemy but Sam wasn’t listening. Dean’s flushed skin was beautiful. Sam had been privy to some of Dean’s embarrassing moments growing up but he hadn’t seen Dean blush like this for many years. He wanted this to be the true-past so badly. If it was, _please God_ if it was, then Sam was going to enjoy telling Dean that he saw this one.

 

Maybe going back and forth in time was messing with Sam on a purely physical level because his refractory period was usually much longer.

 

Castiel said, “I have not come to judge you. I have come to ask for your help. If Sam must be involved then this will be accepted but I must add that your opinion of him is biased, based on your distorted fraternal...”

 

“Castiel!” Dean barked, effectively silencing Cas .

 

Dean put both hands over his face and hid, before pulling them down and away, dragging his skin with them. He looked, for a moment, like a supplicating bloodhound and Sam could sympathise. It was difficult to know who to ask for divine intervention when you were being exasperated by an Angel of the Lord.

 

Now that Sam thought about it, Cas’s inside knowledge of Dean’s darkest thoughts might go some way to explaining their bond. Dean was a firm believer in keeping friends close and enemies closer, and Sam felt confident that Dean would have added, _and those who know devastating secrets closest of all_.

 

“Tomorrow,” Dean was saying. He slammed back his remaining shot and shrugged into his leather jacket, “I’m going to bed. We’ll talk about this...” and he waved a hand between himself and Castiel, “Tomorrow.”

 

Castiel cocked his head and dematerialised with the rustling of feathers that had become so familiar to Sam over the years. Pre-Apocalypse Dean visibly shivered and shuffled out of the bar. Pre-Apocalypse Sam may or may not have been waiting for him at their motel. There had been a lot of time spent with Ruby in those days.

 

****

 

The woods rumbled with distant thunder, which surprised Sam. The place must be susceptible to weather after all, he thought. He must have chanced to visit on an unusually calm day. It did go some way to explaining the closeness of the atmosphere: the calm before a storm.

 

It occurred to Sam that if Cas had garnered knowledge of Dean’s secret desires with his angelic mojo then he must also have known about Sam’s secret desires, and it raised the question of why Cas hadn’t said something. Of course, it was possible that he was angelically allergic to incest and, well, fair enough; however, Sam resolved that he would be Dean’s chaperone in Cas’s presence whenever possible from now on.

 

There were no signs of rain or even clouds, so Sam figured that he had time to make absolutely sure of Dean’s feelings on the matter of his little brother before the storm broke. He was ninety percent sure that Cas had just confirmed that Dean was lusting after him, and he was trying not to get swept away by the _possibilities._ Ideas seeped in and jostling for room in Sam’s mind, until his logic began to get fuzzy and he was in danger of being overwhelmed by dizzy licentious fantasies.

 

Sam would have been willing to take the odds, based on Dean’s blush alone. Why not make absolutely sure though? He racked his brains for a way to make certain of Dean’s affections: something to eradicate that niggling ten percent.

 

From long experience, he knew that Dean was likely to run-off at the mouth when he was happy. Moody-Dean might be tighter than a clam but Happy-Dean tended to get severe logorrhoea.

 

Long drives were also prime talking time, and apparently Dean didn’t shut up just because Sam wasn’t there. Sam considered going back to the time when he had been at Stanford. He could try to overhear more of Dean’s one-sided conversation, for surely Dean would have been candid about his feelings with Imaginary-Sam; however, he found that he had no desire to see Dean lost and lonely all over again.

 

Underwater once more, Sam cast around for Happy-Dean driving the Impala...

 

****

 

... I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide was blasting at nearly full volume. Dean cranked it up impossibly louder, bopping and hand-slapping the wheel. He let rip with, “Easin' down the highway in a new cadillac, I had a fine fox in front, I had three more in the back...”

 

Sam was grateful for the wide open windows: he liked his eardrums. Dean somehow became conscious that his phone was ringing. Sam didn’t know how but he certainly didn’t hear it. He reached right through Sam to snag it off the passenger seat and snugged it between ear and shoulder as he turned the music down low.

 

“Sammy!”

 

Sam couldn’t place the date with only Dean and the Impala to go on. The leather jacket and amulet were gone but when had Dean been so carefree? Sam thought he must have been re-souled for this level of giddiness.

 

“Yeah, I can do that.” Dean was still smiling and it made Sam want to kiss him. “Thai or Mexican?”

 

Sam still couldn’t remember the specifics.  It was clearly his past self on the phone to Dean but it could have been a hundred conversations about which takeout he wanted. The landscape wasn’t helping to place it either, just a minor road with scattered homesteads, not a roadsign in sight. Sam gave up and focussed instead on Dean.

 

“Yeah, I forgot. Rabbit food for the giant guinea pig, sure.” Dean’s tone was at odds with his facial expression. On the other end of the line, Sam would have thought he was being disapproved of; would have imagined Dean rolling his eyes. Dean was actually smiling fondly, eyes soft with affection. This was Dean unguarded and safe from Sam’s judgement.

 

Dean ended the call and Sam expected him to crank the music back up; instead, he tapped the phone against the steering wheel and then sucked on his knuckle in thought.

 

“Sam,” Dean began.

 

“Yes?” The word was out of his mouth before Sam realised that this was another example of Dean’s one-sided conversation.

 

“If you knew what I really wanted to give you when I got back,” Dean punctuated his speech by chucking the phone _through Sam_ onto the seat, “Well, you’d be in for one helluva shock baby brother.”

 

 _Not anymore,_ Sam thought.

 

There was a half-mile of quiet with only the low babble of the stereo. Sam thought that maybe Dean had finished and wondered why he didn’t turn the music back up. He had given Sam further evidence, certainly. Not as conclusive as Sam had hoped for but food for thought nevertheless.

 

“Not only that,” Dean said softly, presumably continuing the conversation in his head out loud for the cheap seats. “I want everything Sammy,” he said. “Love and trust and a lifetime of devotion. You already have my lifetime of devotion.”

 

Dean’s smile had gone, replaced by a wistful look, but then he shook his head and it was back.

 

“And _sex_ Sam,” he said loudly.

 

It was so sudden that Sam wanted to shush him. The windows were wide open and anyone could hear.  

 

“Yeah.” Dean said, still smiling. “You’d be a total prude.” He turned the volume back up just in time for the DJ to announce Paradise City. He wound the dial up, nodding along to the opening riff and Sam was back in the deafening mosh pit of his youth. It was a wonder he hadn’t sustained permanent ear damage.

 

It was possible that Dean talked more to Sam when he wasn’t actually there. Wherever and whenever this was, it was a good day for Dean. He usually listened to his cassette collection, rather than having to endure radio commercials, even when there was a station that played incessant cock rock. This was one of those rare days when there was one good song on the radio after another. Sometimes the sun shone down on your ass and the good times rolled. Sometimes you could do no wrong and they played all the good shit on the radio back to back, not a commercial for miles.

 

He closed his eyes and pushed up and away from the past, vowing to remember this version of Dean and keep it close, glad that he had come looking for further proof...

 

****

 

...Sam broke the surface smiling. He had paydirt.

 

Whatever had led him to this place, be it fate, luck or an intricately marked byangoma, Sam was eternally grateful. He had been handed a wonderful tool: Knowledge that Sam could use to bring Dean and himself together at long last. Knowledge that could enrich their lives beyond comprehension.  

 

The only thing left to do was to check that it was real, and the only way to do that was to bite the bullet and talk to _his_ Dean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam's about to do something silly and greedy, which never works out well, so I had to add a chapter for him. Sorry for moving the goalposts!


	7. Chapter 7

 

Sam felt euphoric. Dean’s giddiness had rubbed off and the music still played in his mind. Unfortunately, Dean wasn’t ever that unguarded when Sam was in earshot but Sam was determined to change that. He was going to get right under Dean’s skin and stay there, nothing guarded or secret between them ever again.

 

There had been something bugging Dean recently. He hadn’t exactly been unhappy but there had been something, and there was this new habit of talking to Sam as though he were multiple people. Sam thought of Dean in the diner, ordering food and holding conversation with his absence, and worried about his brother’s sanity. Perhaps Dean was having trouble amalgamating all the different versions of Sam: Tormented Sam who had hallucinated Lucifer, Sam who had lost his soul, Sam who had obsessed about being normal, Sam the blood junkie, Sam the librarian... and more. He couldn’t really blame him. They had made so many mistakes and Dean had been hurt exquisitely, over and over again. Sam resolved to drag his brother to happiness, kicking and screaming if necessary. But maybe there was penance to be done here first.

 

The thunder was still rumbling, continuous and menacing. Maybe it was one of those electrical storms that stayed high up in the clouds with only aerial lightening. There were some seriously ancient trees but no evidence of lightening damage so far as Sam had seen. No evidence of any dead trees at all in fact, which might be odd in itself. He looked down at the river from his seat on the bank. It babbled along happily, all their world-shaking experiences condensed into in a few yards of freshwater. The bigger picture: something painted by Constable.

 

He recalled the simplicity of being soulless, believing that he saw the bigger picture with fresh eyes. In his twisted logic he had seen emotions only as tools and used them to manipulate Dean. It might have been the worst thing Sam had put him through. Dean’s emotions were sacred but the soulless version of himself had forgotten that. He didn’t know how bad it had been for Dean. He had his memories back, yes, but he hadn’t really paid attention to Dean’s emotional state beyond what could be useful. He had known that it was important to keep Dean by his side, and Dean had aroused him, sure, but it had been much easier to ignore. If he had known about Dean’s extracurricular feelings then he might have done much worse damage. That Dean’s feelings had stayed hidden from his arrogant-arsehole-soulless self was fortunate indeed.

 

Sam knew that he should go back: he had the confirmation he needed. But there was a whole year when he was soulless that Dean wouldn’t talk about. He clammed up any time it was even alluded to. Sam wanted to take a look. Just a quick look, he told himself. He would never get this chance again. Besides, he was outside of time in these woods. In theory he could take as long as he wanted and still get back the moment he left.

 

Sam liked the idea that he would, now, always have been present in the moments of Dean’s past that he had witnessed. He desperately wanted to have been there for Dean whenever he had been alone and this was as close as he could get... and of course there was the maddening addiction of watching Dean when he thought he was alone. Seeing him vulnerable was both terribly wrong and terribly intoxicating. Sam wanted to suffer his brother’s pain so badly. Part of him knew that it was perverse but these were secrets that Dean might never share, no matter how much closer they became. Dean would always protect Sam from his own suffering and it made Sam want to dive in headfirst, like the rebel he had always been.

 

****

 

It was easy to find Dean on the evening after his stint as a vampire. The swirl of emotions were mostly angry but there was also a healthy spike of fear for the thing that looked like Sam but behaved like a cold serial killer; the thing that had stood by and watched his brother being turned.

 

Sam remembered the motel room with the painted brick and the old fashioned yellow lamp between the beds. He could have predicted the half-empty whiskey bottle and empty takeout cartons. What surprised him was the knife sharpening. Dean was forever stripping and reassembling his guns, and watching him at it might have been the most enduring of Sam’s favourite pastimes. Sharpening knives was more of a chore however, because neither of them liked to get covered in the tiny metal filings. Guns needed to be cleaned regularly but knives only blunted if they were used. Sam tried to remember if Dean had needed his knives for the vampires. It was possible. Guns would have been of little use.

 

Dean ran the knife across his palm, over the pad of his thumb. At first Sam thought that he was testing the blade but scarlet blood welled up too quickly. Dean sucked at it, eyes closed, cheeks hollowing with the strength of the suction. He moaned and pushed at the crotch of his jeans with his free hand, lost in the dual sensations. There must have been a lingering desire for blood, despite the cure, and it was clearly having an erotic effect on Dean. He moaned around the mouthful and rubbed at his cock through the denim. He humped his hips in a lewd affirmation of arousal.

 

Sam responded with a moan of his own, safe from notice. The knife slicing through the air, inches from his face, was so unexpected that Sam fell back against the table. He had time to wonder why some things were solid: the table, the Impala, the bench in the diner, the ground itself for that matter, before Dean said, “Fucking bloodlust.” The words were bitten out, his voice gritty with arousal. “You knew!” he shouted.

 

Yeah. Sam had known. He had calculated the risk, seen an opportunity to use Dean as a vampire insider and taken it. He would never _never_ do anything like it with his soul intact, not to himself and certainly not to somebody else; and most especially not to Dean, his beloved brother and partner.

 

Dean knelt on the bed looking a little drunk and a lot crazy. The shout seemed to have taken the wind out of his sails though, and he slumped back, reaching for the bottle. Sam wished that he would go easy on the whiskey. He was going to regret swigging it down in such huge quantities, come morning.  

 

It took a few minutes for the extra whiskey to take effect. He watched every nuance of Dean’s expression as he became more sedated and subdued. Dean palmed at his crotch lazily and made shallow half-hearted thrusts. Sam considered leaving. He had made Dean miserable but already knew that. The residual vampiric traits were interesting from an academic perspective and he guessed that Dean hadn’t mentioned it because of the arousal and the potential for embarrassment. Of course, his version of Sam had been rather less than trustworthy.  

 

“Fuckit,” Dean muttered, sitting up. He managed to shed his jeans clumsily, stumbling as the denim turned inside out and clung to his socked feet. He crawled under the sheets, lying on his belly, head twisted to the side facing Sam. He shoved his mutilated palm back into his mouth, sucking hard to reopen the wound. Sam couldn’t see his other hand but it was tucked down beneath the sheets and the rhythmic humping called for little imagination. Dean’s eyes were closed again, screwed shut, brow furrowed in concentration. It made Sam think of a thumb-sucking overgrown child.

 

This was nothing like before, when Dean had been happy and exhibitionistic in the open land surrounding their Bunker. This was Dean getting off because he needed it, the lovely outline of his ass pumping away at increasing speed until the pace was frantic. Sam squeezed his own cock through his clothes because he had to, the tableau before him too compelling to resist arousal. He didn’t go any further though, and he didn’t move to be closer to Dean. This memory would be etched into Sam’s memory as surely as the other but it was arousing for all the wrong reasons. Dean was unhappy, his reddening face contorted into a deep frown. He was taking comfort from his own body where he could get it: blood and sex. It was deeply private and Sam felt ashamed for being there, cock spurting pre-come into his underwear anyway.

 

Dean’s mouth broke free from his hand, blood smeared and trickling onto the white cotton pillow. The inside of his mouth was a horrifying scarlet, held in a perfect ‘O’ as he spasmed out his climax silently. Sam turned away in shame, lifting his own hand to stop his body from joining in. He was sick. Sick and wrong and hard enough to cut glass. Perhaps all the years of guilty longing had damaged him somehow, leaving him with kink for shame or guilt.

 

And then Dean began to cry.

 

The tears came freely, the alcohol and orgasm allowing him a rare indulgence. Sam went to him, falling to his knees at the bedside. He murmured soft foolish things that Dean couldn’t hear, _It’ll be okay, It’s not really me, Lucifer’s gone forever I promise, It’s okay, Everything’s going to be okay._

 

The corruption of Sam who lived in this past would not be coming back to comfort Dean tonight. There had been a long string of prostitutes: an obvious way to wind down when he’d had no use for a conscience or pride. Sam had needed no sleep and seen no reason to keep his sleeping brother company.

 

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered finally. He rested his cheek against Dean’s bed, which was real to touch, and reached across to brush Dean’s hair, which, of course, wasn’t.  He was done with time travelling. He had to get back to his real brother and make things better. They had a lifetime ahead of them to make amends. It was this thought that Sam tried to hold onto as he collected himself sufficiently to drag himself away from Dean, this Dean who he couldn’t help.

 

****

 

The woods were not so silent anymore. Sam could have sworn that the thunder was louder. He looked down at the surface of the river as he waded to the bank. It rippled along happily but he thought that there was also a slight tremor, as though the very earth beneath was resonating with the not-so-distant rumbling.

 

Sam was no fool. He knew that he needed to get out of there before whatever it was, storm or otherwise, broke. He imagined hundreds of wildebeest stampeding through the woods towards him and looked suspiciously through the trees.

 

The problem was that an idea had taken hold of Sam as he had left Dean sobbing in his bed. There was one beautiful memory that he badly wanted to relive, moreso after witnessing Dean’s abject misery. The memory was barely months old but fading fast, despite Sam’s best efforts to preserve it. He could use the opportunity or he could let the memory fade, and his mind was already made up. He flung himself back into the water, knowing that he had to be quick, sensing by now that there was some kind of danger on the way and taking the risk anyway.

  
  
  



	8. Chapter 8

 

 

The water trembled, Jurassic Park-style, and Sam worried about it even as he pulled the image of Dean in church towards him...

 

****

 

...It was immediately apparent that he was in the wrong time. The church was wrong: there were pews and candles and other people. And Dean was wrong. He was sitting with his head bowed, lips working. Was he actually praying? What the hell?

 

It seemed that Dean was incapable of holding a silent conversation in the confines of his mind but that was just fine with Sam. Dean’s habit of thinking aloud was working in his favour. Sam sat down next to his brother smirking. He reckoned that if anyone was equipped with the power to make Dean’s prayers come true then it would be him. What he hadn’t reckoned on were Dean’s anguished pleas for Sam to be saved. He said that Sam was in a coma. He said that Sam was _dying._

 

“Please,” Dean said, voice strained, desperate and low, “I can’t live without him.”

 

 _No!_ Sam leapt up and stalked around the church, trying to place the date, his movements agitated. Dean looked identical to the Dean in his time but Sam thought he should remember a near-death experience. It must be the future. Was he going to die soon? Dean was crying and begging, so yeah, maybe. How incredibly unfair. How typically Winchesteresque, to be set alight with joy and hope only to be snuffed out moments later, like the briefest of candles.

 

The lectern held a printed copy of the evening service. Sam stared at the date willing it to change, but it didn’t. A misprint perhaps? ‘2013’ where it should have read ‘2014’? It was possible. But there was a clock on the wall between the outer and inner doors. It was an ugly thing of highly varnished orange wood. Sam hated it. The time displayed was 9.25pm and the date was set to Friday May 24th 2013. ‘In the Year of Our Lord’ was inscribed in fancy Edwardian script underneath. It looked righteous and smug to Sam, like an extra kick in the teeth.

 

It was worse than he had thought: their gift was being snatched away before it had even happened. Sam’s insides felt as though they had turned to lead and his thoughts churned unhappily. Had he somehow altered the timeline and cut his own life short? If so, could he rectify it? Would he even exist in his own time anymore? The date was close on the heels of the memory he had been aiming for. Perhaps he had somehow destroyed that moment by looking for it. He really had been dying back in May but Dean had stopped him. It seemed that his past had been derailed and that he had completed the Trials after all.

 

Something stirred deep down in Sam’s conscience. It wasn’t a memory but more of a surfacing feeling. A terrible sense of shame, like maybe he had given up on Dean, on himself and on everything; like maybe he had made a terrible mistake... but no, he shook it off. This had never happened.

 

Finally, Sam had to admit to the most likely explanation, no longer able to deny it: the vision was false. And if this vision was false then all the visions were false. The thought was untenable. He staggered backwards through the swing doors into the night and turned his face upwards into the rain. It felt real enough, lashing down against his skin.

 

He needed to get back to the river, find the damned bird, figure this out for real. He closed his eyes and wished that he had never come to this place, pushing himself up and away distractedly...

 

****

 

...There was no rain on his face. Of course there wasn’t. It wasn’t real. The river had left him dry, as usual, or mostly dry. A couple of salty drops had escaped and spilled down over his cheeks but nobody was around to notice.

 

The thunder had become more of a roar and there was no mistaking the shaking of the ground now. Sam recognised the feeling of everything going to hell. The earth beyond the river banks was breaking and shifting unnaturally, jagged peaks of rock sprouting up at random and dislodging the ancient trees that groaned and tilted. Sam stood waist-deep in the river, not caring. His disappointment was crushing. Mass destruction felt right and he wanted it.  

 

A giant wave swept around the bend in the river, heading directly for him. It sent a spike of adrenalin through Sam’s body but it was too little and too late. He lurched and scrambled for the riverbank but didn’t even get close. The wave hit, swallowing him whole. He was churned and battered underwater, pebbles bashing his legs as he was ground against the riverbed. He flailed to the surface but didn’t stand a chance at fighting the current, swept along helplessly like flotsam on the ocean.

 

Instinct demanded that Sam fight to keep his head above water but a new panic was taking hold. The banks of the river all looked the same, the trees crashing down in a terrible thudding rhythm that could be felt rather than heard, even above the roar of the deluge.  He was moving too fast, dragged away from his part of the river. The landscape had changed beyond recognition, meaning that it would be impossible to find his starting place. He thought wildly that he would end up in the time of the dinosaurs and his mind screamed for his brother. He wished desperately that they had stopped to buy soft drinks after the griffin hunt and that he had never drunk the fucking potion.

 

Wide wings passed over, casting Sam in shadow for an instant. “GO UNDER!” the byangoma screamed, wheeling around to make a return pass. It was right. Sam needed to go under before he was miles downstream. He fought his body’s survival instinct and ducked his head, looking for images of Dean even as he knew that he was so far downstream that he couldn’t have been born but, incredibly, finding him.

 

Sam latched onto the image of his brother with all the heightened psychic ability of the drowning, and pulled...

 

****

 

...and there was Dean, busily carving Sam’s name into the skirting board. Sam fell to his knees, so relieved, and watched Dean work. He longed to go to Dean and touch him, terrified that this might be the last time they would meet. Dean with a slick side-parting and brown brogues. Dean had left the hunt for Chronos in a few short hours but there was no way that Sam could go back to the destruction in the Wood Between the Worlds. There was a real possibility that Sam was now stuck in 1944, if he was really here at all.

 

Sam slumped onto his side, head resting on the pillow in the same place where he would lie down to sleep in 68 years and find Dean’s note.

 

He watched Dean work with the same knife that he had used to slice his hand, precise and efficient. Sam wondered whether there were school desks with Dean’s name etched into them, maybe with his own too. He was so confused. Maybe it was all a magical dream and his body was lying twitching in the Bunker as Dean watched over him, concerned and searching for an explanation. He wondered if his body had really orgasmed and what Dean would have made of it.

 

“Fuck,” Sam said. It seemed like an appropriate summary.

 

“Sammy?” Dean’s voice was a harsh whisper. He sounded spooked, fingers tightening around the knife handle. He took his time to methodically scan the room, as Sam had done himself on so many hauntings. Finding nothing amiss, he visibly relaxed, easing his grip on the knife. “It’s okay, Sam,” he said, voice low and so, so lovely to Sam’s ears. “I’m gonna gank this fucker and then I’m coming home.”

 

Home. They hadn’t even had a home then. Dean meant that he was coming back to Sam, in their own time.

 

Could Dean hear him? “Dean!” Sam shouted, “Dean, I’m here!”

 

Dean stood perfectly still, grip on the knife going tight again for a moment. Then he shook his head, as if to clear it, and walked away swiftly, replacing his hat.

 

It gave Sam the boost that he needed to get up off the floor. He crossed to the window and squinted out into the dark and the rain... and there was a figure, standing beneath a lamppost across the street and off to the left. Sam couldn’t see its face but he knew, without needing to see, that it was looking up at him. It backed away slowly into the shadows and Sam knew an invitation when he saw one.

 

He hurtled down the stairs, taking them three at a time, and squeezed through the door just as Dean was leaving. If anyone could help him out of this mess then it was Chronos, the Greek God of Time, who was lurking in the night, just across the street.  

 

****

 

 “You have two problems, Winchester.” Chronos’s eyes were beetle black and they crawled over Sam, considering him. “The bird has you on a leash...”

 

Sam opened his mouth to interrupt but Chronos held up a hand to forestall him.

 

“Oh, you’re really here, have no doubt,” he said. “Your... _brother_ can sense you here because he is a fellow traveller. Am I right in assuming that he couldn’t sense you at other times?”

 

“Yes, I was invisible to him.”

 

“I can fix that.” Chronos reached for Sam’s neck and Sam instinctively backed away. “Woah there stallion,” he said, laughing quietly, “Easy does it.”

 

Reluctantly, Sam let the creature’s hands settle at his throat. Chronos seemed to be feeling around for an actual leash. There was an audible snap, and Sam felt it in his mind, not dissimilar from when his ears popped from a change in altitude. A gentleman passing on the opposite sidewalk glanced across. His fedora was tilted low, but not so low that Sam missed the suspicious once-over his modern clothing received. He nodded at Chronos in thanks. “And the second thing?” Sam asked.

 

“I want you to do something,” Chronos tilted his head to the side, adding, “Such a small thing really.”

 

Sam nodded. Of course there had to be a deal, they had killed the guy after all. He probably didn’t feel like doing free favours for Winchesters.

 

“There was a woman,” Chronos began.

 

“Lila,” Sam said, “I remember.”

 

“There was a child, afterwards. She never told anyone. A boy.” Chronos took a pocket watch from his waistcoat and turned it thoughtfully on its chain. “He’s going to need this,” he held the watch out to Sam.

 

“How will I find him?” The watch was heavy and elaborately inscribed. Sam really hoped that he could get home to their Bunker, to his beloved library and his beloved Dean. _Dean._

 

“She is my mother, and Time is the father of all,” Chronos said. He fixed Sam with a beady stare. “I am him and he is me. I had to die before I was born.”

 

 _Jesus,_ Sam thought. _And I thought that we had the majority on incest._

 

Incredulity must have shown in his expression because Chronos looked amused. “I’ll find you,” he said, walking away.

 

“Wait!” Sam called after him. “How do I get back?”

 

“Use the watch,” Chronos called over his shoulder, rounding the corner and disappearing into the night.

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

 

 

Sam couldn’t take much more on this rollercoaster of emotions. He was glad that it was real, he really was, and man enough to admit to being a little scared too. It seemed that he really was seventy-years-lost in time and not safely home dreaming as he had suspected. His mind was re-awaking to the implications of the visions being true. It was sending unexpected thrills through his body and making his hands tremble all over again.

 

The inscriptions on the inner casing of the pocket-watch were children’s rhymes, two of them. Sam knew them because Dean had taught him to count cherry stones and orange pips that way when they were kids:

_Tinker tailor soldier sailor rich-man poor-man beggar-man thief_

and

_Lady baby gypsy queen elephant monkey tangerine_

 

The back of the watch read:

_Wind Me..._

_Once for sorrow_

_Twice for mirth_

_Thrice for a wedding_

_Four times for a birth_

_Five times for silver_

_Six times for gold_

_Seven times for a secret never to be told_

_Eight times for Heaven_

_Nine times for Hell_

_Ten times to conjure the Devil's own self_

 

Was it a toy? Chronos had said that his child-self would need the watch. Or should that be he _had needed_ the watch as a child? Sam longed for the simplicity of normal life, where clocks ticked regularly and time behaved itself.

 

Perhaps the watch was a tool that a young time-deity could use to practice the art of time travel. Sam had picked up a few techniques for controlling time travel himself. He figured that all you really needed was enough _juice_ , be it a river, angel mojo, the result of an alchemist’s experiment gone awry, a time-god or a magical pocket-watch. The rest, it seemed, was all in the mind.  

 

There were no numbers on the watch-face, but rather symbols representing the rhymes: Eight tiny images on the outer circle, ranging from a man with a hammer to a thief with a swag-bag. Seven tiny symbols made up the inner circle, lady to tangerine. There were two hands that could be moved independently with dials. He was careful not to touch the larger dial just yet. There were examples of similar tools in their father’s lockup; supernatural oddities that had been created for amusement but could be devastating in the wrong hands.   

 

He set the larger hand to the picture of the tiny soldier, which was easy enough to choose. He umm’d and ahh’d over the smaller hand, eventually disregarding the monkey as generally unlucky in folklore, the tangerine as completely meaningless and settling on the elephant. His reasoning was simply that the _elephant in the room_ with himself and Dean was finally going to get blasted away, when this worked. It was a tenuous link but he figured that the selection didn’t really matter and that the watch was more of a meditation tool in that regard anyway. 

 

This had to work. Sam had to find Dean and make him understand that they were going to be okay, that all of it was okay; that however many un-brotherly thoughts Dean was hiding, Sam was harbouring a thousand times more.  He wanted to be with Dean in every way and to hell with the rest of the world. He was going to make Dean so happy.

 

He had already wound the large dial once before he realised his mistake. His fingers froze, pinching the metal so that the watch wouldn’t be able to tick. He had intended to wind the watch seven times, their obvious secret being at the forefront of his mind... but _never to be told_? No thanks. What if he somehow bound the secret, or arrived at a point in time when it never could be told? He shuddered slightly at how close he had come to disaster.

 

Very carefully, Sam wound the watch one more turn, twice for mirth, and released the dial, sending a silent plea heavenwards as the world became a blur of motion.

 

****

 

It took longer to travel through the decades than Sam had expected. When the whirlwind slowed sufficiently to glimpse the first clear images, they were fleeting: himself and Dean as teenagers, various schools, various monsters.

 

Emotions associated with each image began to come, intensifying as the images lingered and his journey slowed. Sam fought them off, trying to stay calm and focussed on the ones he wanted. He concentrated on Dean after hunting the griffins, his pleasure at sparing their lives and keeping them together. Sam recalled how he had felt: like a hero, and how Dean had been riding high after the hunt. Sam was like the second griffin now, arrowing through time. Nothing would keep him from Dean.

 

As he got closer to his target the images slowed down. There was Dean with a shotgun, watching the streak of griffin dive-bomb the Time Pool. He prepared himself for the cognitive leap that would take him home, as he saw Dean flicking through radio stations on the drive and paying for gas in fast-forward. Then there was Dean in the shower, and _holy hell!_ Dean slippery and wet, stroking his cock lazily, swirling steam and...

 

Sam overshot his mark, panic flooding his veins. He grabbed at the next image of Dean, Dean in the kitchen in that stupid robe, and pulled at him with all his mental ability...

 

****

 

...Sam tripped into the kitchen at the Bunker and Dean looked up, right at him. Dean could see him.

 

“Dean! What day is it?” Sam yelled, a little too loud and before he had really thought about how it would sound.

 

“Well hey there Marty McFly,” Dean grinned, still loose and relaxed, “I don’t actually know what day it is.” He tilted his head thoughtfully, “Tuesday maybe. Obama’s still president, if that helps?” His smile said, _Good game Sammy_.

 

Sam thought, _Fetch,_ unkindly, before reprimanding himself. Dean’s real smiles, once so rare, had re-emerged down here in their Bunker. It was just another reason that Sam loved the place, the best reason perhaps. He let himself melt in the face of his brother’s tousled hair and robe. Even better than a legacy of secret knowledge: happy Dean.

 

Dean obviously hadn’t missed Sam so he was either too early and there was another Sam wandering around in this reality, or he had only been gone a few hours. Sam knew is his gut that the latter was true but he glanced at the morning’s papers and the weapons from their earlier hunt, laid out and freshly cleaned, to confirm it. He was home.

 

“What did you do without me?” It was a stupid question and he wasn’t sure why he asked. Then he thought of Dean talking to his absence and thought maybe he did know.

 

“I ate pie Sam,” Dean gave him an eyebrow waggle and a grin. He also jerked off and slept the better part of the afternoon away but Sam didn’t need to know about that.

 

“I got lost.” And wasn’t that the understatement of the year?

 

Dean shook his head and snorted softly. “Yeah? What, Narnia this time bookboy? Or is there another doorway to Oz somewhere?”

 

“No, seriously Dean. I got lost in the Stream of Time. _Your time_ in fact. You wouldn’t believe...”

 

Dean was giving him an incredulous look and Sam didn’t know why. It was going to be a pretty wild story, sure, but Dean couldn’t start claiming to be a sceptic about the supernatural _now_.

 

He cleared his throat and tried to convey the seriousness of his story in his tone. “It was the Tears of Time. I drank it. By mistake! I mean, I thought it was water,” Sam fought down his embarrassment because yeah, stupid careless mistake. “It pulled me out of time and I shouted but you didn’t hear me. I ended up in these woods and there was a river that took me to various points in your life when you thought you were alone.”

 

Dean was looking a little worried now but Sam suspected that he still wasn’t being taken entirely seriously. It made him mad. They _had_ just been on a time-related hunt. “I saw you getting a sponge bath at school when you were six,” he said, to wipe the look off Dean’s face, and then immediately regretted it because Dean went from smug to shut-down in an instant.

 

 “Shit,” Dean said, biting his lips together. “Shit Sam.”                            

 

Dean crossed to the fridge, grabbed two cold beers and swiftly decapitated them. He leant against the counter in a good imitation of casual and said, “But you’re okay now right?” When Sam nodded Dean visibly relaxed. “So?” he asked, handing over Sam’s beer.

 

Sam realised that he was going to tell Dean every detail of everything he saw. Dean needed to know and the easiest way to appear honest was to actually be honest. It was more than that though. Sam wanted to tell him. There was nothing he wanted to keep from Dean anymore and it was a gloriously liberating thought. Most glorious of all was the knowledge that Dean wanted Sam.

 

Sam smiled, he couldn’t help it. It made Dean look more worried and Sam could almost see the cogs whirring in his mind. Dean was wondering what else Sam had seen and whether Sam knew his guilty secret. Hell, Sam would be freaking out too if their roles were reversed. The invasion of Dean’s private thoughts was almost orgasmically agreeable and he felt a surge of drunkenness at the power it afforded him. His smile widened, growing teeth and dimples.

 

“Sam, what else..?”

 

“I’m going to kiss you,” Sam told him, stepping in but making no move to follow through. He watched the emotions as they crossed Dean’s face: Shock and confusion, swiftly followed by anger. If he hadn’t been looking for it then Sam would have missed the hunger, but he was looking for it now and didn’t know how he could have missed it before.

 

“Hell no you’re not.” Dean backed away as he spoke. “I don’t know what you drank but the only place you’re going is the shower because you stink like a camel, and then...” Dean set his bottle down heavily on the counter and beer frothed out, slipping down the sides, “...then we’ll figure this out.”

 

Sam knew that stubborn look. He sighed. Okay, so maybe he did smell a little fruity. There hadn’t exactly been time to clean up at any point in the last – what? – seven decades in either direction? He was still wearing the clothes he had hunted the griffins in that morning, ripe with sweat, dirt and the odd trace of blood. There was no point arguing anyway. No hurry now that he was back.

 

Dean’s fierce facade faltered when Sam pulled both shirts over his head, grinning. Dean’s eyes raked Sam’s body before he remembered to look away, his lips parting involuntarily.

 

Oh yes. The seduction of Dean Winchester could wait. Sam had all the time in the world.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here I go moving goalposts again but Dean needs a little time to adjust and it would be a shame to miss out on the beginnings of their lifestyle change, right? So one more chapter to come...


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The expressiveness of Jensen/Dean's face was an observation made by [Colette_Capricious](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Colette_Capricious/pseuds/Colette_Capricious). I'm just stealing it because it's so true :)

 

 

Sam might have set a new world record for showering and changing. Despite telling himself to be calm and take it slowly, patience wasn’t really his strong point. He snagged another dead-man’s robe from the linen closet, remembering how Dean’s eyes had lingered on his chest. If Dean could lounge around in one of those things then so could Sam.

 

Dean had dressed. He was sitting at the table, twirling the Impala’s keys around his forefinger. He looked jumpy and about ready to bolt. He stashed the keys in his pocket as Sam approached with a look of passing guilt. Sam wasn’t worried. Even if Dean did run away it would be short-lived and Sam wasn’t going anywhere. He raised an eyebrow at Sam’s attire. “Thought you hated those things.”

 

Sam shrugged and pulled out two chairs further down the table, one to sit on and another for his bare feet. “They’re growing on me,” he said. The robe fell apart satisfyingly, revealing leg all the way to the tops of his thighs and the cotton of his underwear. Dean looked away, shifting on his chair.

 

Sam took a swig of beer and Dean’s eyes tracked the movement too carefully. It was wonderful. How had he never noticed before? He poked at the corner of his mouth with his tongue and watched as Dean’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

 

Dean cleared his throat and hunched over the wooden tabletop. He spread his palms on the highly polished surface. “So you’ve been back in time?” he asked the table.

 

“I thought they were visions at first,” Sam admitted. _Gently_ , he told himself. “But I was really there, only, you couldn’t see me.”

 

“Where Sam?” Dean looked up at him. He had the look of a cornered animal. _A large dangerous one,_ Sam reminded himself. _With teeth_. “What did you see?”

 

Sam mentally filed through the memories for the least disturbing. “Do you remember in Chicago, when you carved my name into the skirting board? I think you could sense me.”

 

“Yeah,” Dean nodded slowly. “Yeah, I remember. I thought it was a ghost but... but it felt like _you_.”

 

“Right. I was there.”

 

Dean clenched and released his jaw, muscles jumping beneath the skin. “Damn it Sam!” He slapped the tabletop, making the papers jump. “What else did you see?”

 

Sam took his feet down slowly and leant forward. This was it, the moment when Dean would run, if he was going to. He was aware of his robe bagging apart as he leant forward and of Dean’s quick glance down. “I _know_ , Dean.”

 

“Christ.” Dean closed his eyes for a moment. Then he was standing and fishing out the keys for the Impala.

 

“Wait!” Dean was turning away, preparing to leave without hearing the whole truth, so Sam grabbed his arm and held on.

 

“Get off me Sam.” If Dean’s face were a musical instrument then it would be a Stradivarius violin: beautifully expressive. There was shame there, hot and heavy and part of Sam revelled in it, his loins flooding with heat. It was the part of him that wanted to occupy Dean’s mind and body and declare him Sam’s territory. Mostly though, Sam wanted to make it better. Dean was suffering again and it wouldn’t do.

 

“Me too Dean,” Sam said but it wasn’t enough. “Me too,” he repeated, trying to get the message across with his eyes but Dean was still pulling away. “I...” _I what? Need you? Want you?_ “I love you.” Shit. It was too much. Dean was going to run away.

 

But Dean had gone still. He looked pointedly at his arm where Sam’s fingertips dug in. Sam let go as if he had been burned, remembering the bruises that John had left behind. Dean didn’t run.

 

Sam’s heart was going triple time, trying to burst out of his chest and up through his throat.

 

When Dean looked up, his face was carefully blank but his body was betraying him, eyes a little too dark, cheeks a little too flushed. “You love me Sammy?” he asked, moving into Sam’s space, and now it was Sam’s turn to squirm. He knew that he should feel more embarrassed after blurting something like that out but it was true, damnit, in every sense. And being this close to Dean, having that mouth there, right there in front of him and begging to be kissed, was killing him.

 

Dean’s stance was open. He just stood there, too close, offering himself to Sam. His body language said, _This is what you get, if you want me_ , no pretense and no more games. Dean was making himself vulnerable to Sam. He was equalling the playing field with yet another display of outstanding bravery. “Yeah Dean,” Sam whispered and kissed him.

 

It was tentative at first. Dean’s breath held a tang of whiskey. Sam drew back but Dean chased his lips, keeping them together. The remaining gap between their bodies closed and Dean was suddenly _vital_ and astonishingly _there._ Sam held him close, awed at being allowed to finally touch. Heat bled through his shirt and Sam could feel his heartbeat, heavy and fast and so close to Sam’s own. He felt a wild mixture of excitement and terror, and held on tighter, locking their bodies together. They clung like that for long moments, bound together by overwhelming emotions that seemed to radiate from the point where their chests pressed together and their hearts thundered like drumfire.

 

When they were done clinging, they kissed again, deeper this time. Dean’s hands wormed inside Sam’s robe, unfastening, opening and pushing it to the floor with a soft whump. Dean’s fingers traced his bare skin, alternately soothing and tickling across his shoulders and arms. It made Sam quake with arousal and the blood rush in his ears. The heat of Dean’s mouth was overwhelming and Sam wanted to find a bed but he couldn’t stop kissing. He was spiralling out of control and Dean was taking over, doing things to Sam’s mouth that he must have been planning for years. He was mounting a campaign against Sam’s sanity and it was a battle he had already won.

 

Dean squeezed Sam’s ass and ground their hips together, making him whimper with want. He felt Dean’s lips curve up as he did it again, this time lining them up perfectly, cotton to denim. Sam had to break away, tip his head back and _breathe_. Dean kissed his neck and squeezed at his nape. He squeezed Sam’s cock through his underwear and Sam moaned, scrabbling for Dean’s belt because _why were there clothes between them?_

 

“C’mon.” Dean took him by the wrist and led him to his room, pushing him down onto the bed, where Sam lay panting and straining against the newly damp cotton of his underwear.

 

Dean kept eye contact as he stripped all the way down, a link between them that was hot and unbreakable. Sam wanted to say something, wanted to look away, wanted to look at Dean’s body as it was exposed, layer by layer, but he couldn’t break the connection. Dean was hard and beautiful, as he had been in the field. His skin was flushed pink-over-freckles and Sam reached for him, pulling him down, bringing them together, flesh to flesh as it should have been all along. He wriggled free of his own shorts and Dean kissed him again, deeper and rougher this time, hot and wet and _Dean._

He worked his way down, neck, shoulders, chest, stubble dragging across Sam’s skin, his cock trailing wetly against Sam’s thigh, until his mouth hovered over Sam’s cock. “Yeah Sammy?” he asked, damp breath skating across the tip of Sam’s cock, making it jump and twitch. Dean’s voice was heat and promise but there was a hint of playfulness in his eyes.

 

“God yes,” Sam managed, and Dean’s mouth, that beautiful mouth of Sam’s every fantasy since adolescence, closed around him. Sam lost it. His hips reared up off the bed, making Dean gag and grab on, holding Sam down. Sam held Dean’s head, needing to do _something_. He gasped and moaned and tried to concentrate on not thrusting, while Dean bobbed and sucked and rubbed with his tongue, swallowing Sam down until it felt like his soul would be lost forever in the black-hole of Dean’s mouth.

 

He had definitely done this before. Rage flooded Sam, twining through his arousal and making it damn near impossible to keep still. If anyone ever touched Dean again they would lose a hand. Or an arm. Or whatever body part they used to touch Dean with. It was only fair. Dean rolled Sam’s balls until they drew up, his body teetering on the edge of release. A single finger slid further back and stroked over his hole and that was all it took. Sam came uncontrollably, hard and fast and so, so good into the heat of Dean’s mouth, and Dean took it all, groaning and swallowing, his body humping in sympathy.

 

Sam kept shivering after Dean released him, fresh jolts shooting through him every time he tried to move. It was as though the orgasm had torn something free inside, broken him perhaps because the urge to cry was trying to take hold. He fought it back and gradually got himself back under control. Dean seemed to understand, soothing him with _shhh_ noises and pushing him down gently when he made to reciprocate before his arms were working properly.

 

“I thought we could never have this.” Dean’s voice was rough. His cock was hard and slippery at the tip, brushing Sam’s leg. Sam went to take hold of it but Dean moved his hand aside again, rubbing up against Sam’s thigh instead. “Sometimes I wondered though. Sometimes I thought _maybe_.” Sam turned and kissed him, surprised by the taste of himself mingled with Dean. He would never get enough of Dean. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted this Sam.”

 

“Actually,” Sam pressed their foreheads together and closed his eyes. He must have been a saint in a previous life to deserve a gift like this, “I think I do.”

 

Dean rolled them so that he was on top. A teasing smile ignited in his eyes and spread slowly. Sam instinctively tensed because it was the same look Dean used to get when he was stronger and could pin Sam down for as long as he liked. It was the same look he used to get before tickling Sam to within an inch of hysteria, and if he did that now Sam might die of oversensitivity or kill them both with his flailing. Dean did nothing though, just held himself over Sam, gaze dark and heavy and mouth smiling softly. He was breathtakingly beautiful and he probably knew it.

 

“So.” Sam’s breath hitched and his cock twitched because he knew what Dean was going to say a moment before he said it. “Are you gonna let me?”

 

His grip tightened on Dean’s sides, his breathing picking up again, and his poor tender cock started to swell for the umpteenth time that day. _Yes_ , he was going to let Dean fuck him, although he had almost always imagined it the other way around. Sam was _bigger_. He was the kind of guy who liked to flex his muscles and combine sex with a workout. He liked to be able to pick up the women he slept with and manhandle them. It made him feel good, like an alpha male or something. But not here. With Dean he only wanted to be Sam, and everything they meant to each other. “ _God yes_ ,” he breathed into Dean’s neck, as Dean reached down to pet his hole, already knowing the answer.

 

Dean insisted that they needed ‘proper lube’ and Sam wasn’t surprised that he had some stashed away. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry, despite the unflagging erection that he held against his belly as he walked around naked. Dean seemed to enjoy being naked in front of Sam and it was incongruous with his layers of shirts and day to day modesty, wearing t-shirts beneath his robe and drying and dressing in privacy; however, it made sense when Sam remembered how he had exposed himself to the elements in their makeshift shooting range. He really hoped that this could be a lasting part of their new intimacy, as he admired the view, committing it to memory just in case it was his only chance. He would ban Dean from ever wearing clothes when it was just the two of them, if he thought he could get away with it.

 

It was strange and much more intense with Dean’s fingers in his body. Sam had fingered himself plenty, imagining that his fingers were Dean’s, or that his fingers were his own and his body was Dean’s. Still, the feeling was different. Amplified. And although it was his third go-around, Sam’s body was totally onboard and heading for orgasm number three. They kissed as Dean worked him open and Sam let him know how good it felt, with his mouth, his movements and small appreciative sounds.

 

“Have you ever...?”

 

Sam shook his head, no. He had never. Dean should know that, that nobody else would ever have permission for this.

 

Dean pushed into him slowly, holding back and waiting for Sam’s body to accept him and pull him in by itself. It still burned. At first the burn only served to heighten Sam’s arousal but then it started to hurt. Sam panicked as the balance tipped towards pain but Dean calmed him, distracting him with kisses and gentle squeezes to his softening cock. The pain subsided slowly and Sam heaved a breath of relief, making him looser still, more relaxed, and he started to feel good again. Dean was obviously paying close attention because he moved slightly, tentatively, and Sam moaned wretchedly at the feeling. It burned but it was good. “More,” he demanded.

 

Dean moved carefully, studying Sam’s face and pacing himself accordingly. The intimacy was intense and Sam felt his face burning hotter and hotter. There was evident tension in Dean’s body, in his shuddering muscles and strained expression, but Sam still felt embarrassed at his earlier over-eagerness in the face of Dean’s steely restraint.

 

“More Dean,” Sam said, when it started to feel easier. He was completely open for Dean and he wanted Dean to take everything he had. “ _More_.”

 

“Yeah, c’mon,” Dean pushed his legs back, up towards his chest, and God, how had he thought he was open before? _This_ was what it felt like to be completely open. Then Dean started to fuck into him, finally taking what they both wanted, and it was a million times better, the angle and Dean’s clever hips devastating Sam. He was falling apart. There could only be sweet, sweet death at the end of this, and Sam welcomed it. He craved it in the deepest part of him: obliteration in the arms of his brother.

 

“Fuck, _Dean_ ,” Sam had to get a hand around his cock. He tugged himself as Dean slammed into him and his orgasm blindsided him, body hurtling over the edge. It was fireworks and flying, and Dean’s cock kept him there, going off over and over, harder than ever before, until there was nothing left. Dean watched him open-mouthed.  

 

“Sam,” he said, bowing his head and closing his eyes. “Sam,” and he stilled, filling Sam with come. Neither of them had even mentioned using protection. _Dean’s coming in my ass_ , Sam thought a little hysterically, as his own orgasm ebbed away.

 

Sam cupped Dean’s head, fingertips supersensitive where they stroked in the soft fur of his hair. Dean allowed it for a while before getting up for a towel to clean them both up. He shoved at Sam, who felt boneless and could see no reason to resist, rolling him onto his side so that Dean could spoon up behind him and pull a sheet over them, their bodies tight together.

 

“Dean, we don’t fit like this anymore,” Sam held Dean’s arms tightly around him in case he tried to move.

 

“Don’t care. You’re still my little brother.”

 

“You’re cuddling me.”

 

“Damn right I am.”

 

“I kind of wish there were witnesses. What would people think? Dean-Badass-Winchester cuddling his little brother like a teddy bear.” Sam was grinning like a crazy fool and Dean bit him none too gently on the shoulder in response. “What would Cas think?”

 

Dean pressed his face into the nape of Sam’s neck and he went so still and quiet that Sam began to worry, began to regret mentioning Cas. Maybe he had misjudged their relationship, or... “There’s no angel in heaven, or otherwise, who could deny us this.” Dean’s voice was strangely fierce so Sam just nodded and squeezed Dean’s arms tighter. “Go to sleep Sammy.”

 

And Sam did, for a while. When he woke Dean was still sleeping. Sam slipped from his embrace and looked him over fondly, laying a hand over his chest to feel the rise and fall of his breathing. He remembered his questions about the church but even if Dean hadn’t been sleeping Sam probably couldn’t have brought himself to ask. He berated himself for it, called himself a big girl’s blouse (it was Dean’s voice that supplied this comparison), but he just knew that it would start an argument and that was the last thing he wanted. Sam smiled. Whatever it was that was bothering Dean, it wasn’t going to destroy this precious new thing between them.

 

Charlie’s photo made a whole lot more sense now. Dean was fierce and selfless and completely Sam’s. He drove every part of Sam’s usually well-balanced intellect absolutely crazy and Sam loved him so damn much.

 

****

 

It would be days later – after their bodies had become lifelong friends and Sam had decided that Dean was never having his own bed again – when Dean was sleeping and Sam would go to their library. He would find a single black and white feather marking a page in Myths of Jamuna. The story described a life debt between a pair of byangomi and a solo creature that could only have been a griffin, from the description.

 

After substantial digging he would also find the Story of Gechho, a scholar who was granted foresight and passage through the Forest of the Gods in return for his labours. Unfortunately, Gechho had overstayed his welcome and brought down the Gods’ anger. Cursed to remain in the forest forever, he had eventually taken root and turned into a tree.

 

****

 

It would be many years later – after their adventure in Oz, after Sam had framed his copy of the photograph and it’d had time to gather dust, and after Dean’s hair had started to silver sexily at the edges – when a small boy with beetle-black eyes would come knocking on their door asking for his pocket-watch back.

 


End file.
